Two people killed in Texas after 350,000 pound load detaches from trailer, crushes vehicle: officials
Two people killed in Texas after 350,000 pound load detaches from trailer, crushes vehicle: officials
Or perhaps because the owners of the transport company may have refused to listen to safety concerns from employees because it would require expensive upgrades and additional personnel that they didn’t want to pay for.
In either case, I am sure this will be a “No one could have predicted this” situation, the driver of the truck takes all the blame, and nothing changes regarding company policy or safety regulations.
Depending on how the contracts are written, the transport company may now be extremely fucked too.
This always happens. Skimp on safety to save pennies, then lose millions in equipment in a disaster. The person buying this equipment is going to demand a new one for free, and the supplier is going to point at the transporter.
Justly so. Let them lose everything for trying to cut corners and killing people as a result.
Here is the non-Fox News article:
“Temple police confirmed that two people died and one was seriously injured after an oversize load came off its trailer Saturday.
Temple Fire and Rescue responded to the crash around 11 a.m. on State Highway 36, west of Highway 317.
Crews found the oversized load pinning a vehicle beneath. The load being hauled by the transport fleet was 350,000 lbs. It took four hours to extract one victim, who was flown to the ER with life threatening injuries.
Officials say the cause of the accident is still under investigation. The road remains closed at this time.”
For the uninitiated:

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That’s why they have permitting processes that include route inspections, filed routes, and planning. Depending on the load they might have police escorts to basically shut down the roads following the load.
Big stuff has to be moved sometimes and things can go to extreme lengths to make it happen. If they don’t go on public roads, how else can things be moved?
In LA they moved a giant boulder to the LA County Museum of Art that had a whole documentary around it.
Then the amount of work put in to move the space shuttle. They had to move street lights and power lines out of the way. There can be so much coordination to move big loads.
Well, this is just an open and shut case of reckless driving, clearly the driver should have avoided the situation, and if they had, they would not have been crushed!
I mean, this is just super basic stuff, “don’t get into dangerous situations” is something you learn even before learning to drive.
It’s is not hard.
/s (just in case)
I saw a picture of that… and how the fuck does a load like that with a bajillion trailers not have police or road flasher crews in front and behind to make sure no one passes it?
(The answer is cheaping out on both cost and safety on the shipper and sender’s part)
www.dps.texas.gov/section/…/length
Hehehe, well you know this thing called safety rules designating the maximum length of a combination trailer load to something reasonable like 65 ft? According to Texas Transportation Code 622.902, if oil is involved then it’s all out the window:
The length limitations do not apply to:
… 5. a truck-tractor, truck-tractor combination, or truck-trailer combination exclusively transporting machinery, materials, and equipment used in the construction, operation, and maintenance of facilities, including pipelines, that are used for the discovery, production, and processing of natural gas or petroleum;
That is a fucking terrifying sight.
And absolutely it should’ve had vehicle escorts. That looks like a very expensive piece of process engineering equipment. Whoever is culpable is going to take a huge financial hit.
People dying of course is even worse, but the people making decisions only care about money – so let them wallow in the financial loss.
Well, it seems like this would be a super load in Texas. So pilot and trailing cars at least. With a route inspection ahead of time and permits. It would also probably be extra likely to be inspected by highway patrol. I can’t speak to Texas, but a load like this in California would usually have police escorts and probably even basically shut down the freeways during it’s travel and cars wouldn’t be able to pass.
It’s not like those pilot and trailing cars have any real enforcement for other drivers, though. They’ll be in contact with the truck driver to let him know what’s around him and the trucks position especially around corners.
Securing a load is usually ultimately on the driver and his CDL. That driver is going to be having a very bad day. It’s hard to say how much they will go after the company, because this is an unusual load.
So I take it the guy who tugged on the straps and said “This is not going anywhere” before they left is going to be fired?
(In all seriousness this is a nightmare and Texas really needs to have better large load escort rules)
But on the upside, these two people are so free
Thank God n Jesus that no evil regulations were holding their spirits down as they rose up to heaven, b’gawd